


Afterward

by CaptainReina



Series: Westward [2]
Category: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Video Game)
Genre: Epilogue, Gen, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28844817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainReina/pseuds/CaptainReina
Summary: Follow-up to Westward.Everyone seems satisfied with their newfound freedom but Wolf.
Series: Westward [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2115114
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	Afterward

**Author's Note:**

> this is very tonally and stylistically different from the rest of the story, so here it is as a different fic! there's nothing particularly eventful that goes on, just some stuff ab what they all do after the fic ends. i rewrote this three times so i hope it's good sdfkj

Wolf has no clue what he's doing.

A journey spanning months, countless battles, love and loss, a happy ending - all of that is well and good, but where does it leave him?

He starts with the tea shop.

It had been Kuro's dream all this time, after all. Wolf gets materials from the village, hires carpenters to help, and puts in orders for the more delicate things. Jun provides contacts from all over, and Wolf works and learns the craft and even picks up a little more Mandarin along the way. After all is said and done, they are left with a building that looks like it came straight from Ashina; admittedly foreign in this land, but it already looks like a fine home.

Kuro says as much, eyes shining, and hugs Wolf with all the joy of someone whose dreams are coming true before their very eyes, and it staves off the lost feeling for a little while.

* * *

_"What of you, my son?"_

_Qiūjì rests against the same cliff Wolf's legs dangle from. The waters below are crystal clear, and Wolf considers dropping into them simply because. But Joro would kill him for ruining yet another new haori, so he refrains._

_What of me?_

_He wishes he knew the answer._

* * *

Kuro immediately starts ordering teas, cultivating plants, working on his brews, and Wolf uses what he's learned to craft furniture for the customers. Kuro remarks how lovely the sakura trees around the sea are, so Wolf takes their seeds and plants them along the dirt path leading to the torii. Kuro notes how muddy it gets when it rains, so Wolf finds nice flat stones on the shore and paves the path into something more stable and artful.

He tries Kuro's experimental brews. He learns a few pastry recipes to help around the shop. He puts up Kuro's handmade flyers in the village. He does everything he can to make Kuro's dream a reality.

He continues doing what he has always done - he helps wherever he can. He bakes the pastries so Kuro can make the tea and Húli can serve the customers. He tends the saplings and sweeps the path. He collects orders from the village so Kuro does not have to close shop.

He does all this, and convinces himself it is enough. That it is what he wants.

* * *

_"Well,"_ _Qiūjì muses, "what_ do _you want?"_

_Wolf dreads the question. He has been avoiding it._ _"I don't know," he answers truthfully, and the admission frustrates him._

_Why should he want anything? Every facet of his life is arguably perfect - the fight is over, Kuro is happy and healthy, they are both free. Why isn't he happy? Why isn't he satisfied? Why does the rest he always deserved feel so stagnant?_

* * *

Seasons pass. Business is bustling. People of all ages visit the tea shop, and Kuro gets the chance to finally socialize with teens his own age. They stay well past closing, and get their pick of the remaining pastries, and chat long through the night.

Wolf learns more and more of the local dialect as he overhears plenty of conversation, but he does not speak to the customers. He has nothing to say. He has little interest in them, and the adults that visit admittedly seem to come for calm solitude, not for the socially-stunted baker to harass them. Instead, he keeps an eye on the kids as they laugh and talk and tell stories, and pride blossoms in his chest.

Húli works in the shop and sleeps with the boys when night comes, but in her free time she mostly visits with Joro. The spider demon confesses her interest in perhaps going further into fashion, more than just a hobby, and they all wholeheartedly support her. Kuro and Húli happily wear her designs, and when the young crowd expresses interest, they take orders and deliver them.

Two booming businesses, Wolf thinks, and tries to be happy for them. It is not _too_ difficult.

* * *

_"I realize," Wolf says, "that without fighting, I know nothing of myself."_

_The dragon studies him for a long moment, whiskers fluttering with every calm breath, and Wolf waits patiently for its judgment._

_"Do you wish to keep fighting?" it asks._

_"No," Wolf replies firmly. "It is just . . . all I know."_

_"There is more to you,"_ _Qiūjì says, and it sounds like a promise. "You just have to find it."_

* * *

Their life is not entirely peaceful. Sometimes, the emperor comes knocking at their door.

Not literally the man himself, of course. But sometimes a spider will skitter into the open window of the kitchen and crawl its way up to Wolf's shoulder, and the shinobi will quietly steal away without a word to deal with it. Sometimes Kuro notices, and sometimes he doesn't. Rarely does he follow, for _someone_ has to man the shop and ensure the customers are safe and unaware.

The soldiers are rarely any threat. Between Wolf's blade and Qiūjì's fury, their forces are reduced to nothing. Sometimes Wolf wonders why the emperor still bothers to turn against his own god. Most of the time, he does not care, and spiders come to claim the bodies before anyone can find them.

Every time, he slips back into the kitchen and is noticed. Every time, Kuro offers a smile that does not quite reach his eyes, a tender pat on the hand, and a gentle urge to take the rest of the day off. Wolf is not allowed to say no.

On the day that Wolf cuts the sword arm off a soldier that tries to behead him, he returns to Kuro haunted and sick, and Kuro closes shop early to give them a moment of peace together. It is familiar and warm, and for a time, Wolf can pretend not so much has changed.

* * *

_"It's ironic."_

_"Hm?"_

_Wolf gestures to the gleaming metal of his left arm. "The upgrades were made for combat," he says, "but it rarely sees such use these days. It no longer holds a weapon, but instead bakes bread and cake."_

_"Such mundane things should not be taken for granted,"_ _Qiūjì responds. "Not everyone can have them."_

_Of course not. There is suffering and famine all over the world - Wolf knows this, has suffered it himself. But his circumstances are rather . . ._

_He pauses._ _Qiūjì blinks at him, questioning, but Wolf stands and makes a beeline for home - for the little book of handwritten notes left at the bottom of their pack so long ago._

* * *

It is . . . difficult to ask favors of Kuro, but when Wolf finally stutters out the request to transcribe Aurelio's notes to kana, Kuro beams and sets to work right away.

There is so much to see, so much to read. Diagrams upon diagrams, equations Wolf does not understand. There are measurements and descriptions of components, and so much speculation and musing that Wolf has to set aside a week's worth of evenings to get through it all.

At first, he understands little. He has never been the pondering type - he learns better hands-on. So, after another two weeks of familiarizing himself with the diagram of his own prosthetic, he spends his day off dismantling it.

It's clear the thought makes Kuro anxious. If Wolf tried to claim any different, he would be lying. But he meticulously removes each metal plate and sorts the pieces by the order he took them off, and after spending some time inspecting the mechanisms within to try and decipher what each is meant to do, he pieces the shell back together with ease. For the rest of the day, he matches up the things he's seen with other diagrams in the notebook, and begins writing his own in the margins.

Each time he dismantles the arm, he goes further and further in. Each time, he memorizes how to piece it back together. Each time, he discovers something new - the supports inside that keep it sturdy, the screws on the elbow that control the tension of the joint, the wires within the forearm that move the fingers like tendons. He observes. He takes notes. He _understands._

And before long, he begins to draw up his own designs.

* * *

Time passes - months, then a year. Wolf works and works and works, and prototype after prototype show improvement, but still nothing like what he is trying to imitate. He carves the bulk of them from wood, unwilling to waste money and materials on projects he is unsure about, and there is a growing pile of them on one side of his worktable.

It does not frustrate him. Every time, he learns something new. Someday, they will be usable. He keeps trying.

Kuro hires a friendly boy from the village that smiles at him like he hung the stars in the sky, and Wolf dedicates the free time it grants him to his personal project - when he isn't suspiciously eyeing the new teenager in the kitchen.

He plans. He works. After another season of tweaking his designs, he fastens polished oak to his left arm and flexes the fingers experimentally. Never had Wolf imagined these hands made to kill would learn to create. And when he heads into the shop to help in the kitchen, Kuro stops short at the sight and tears well up in his eyes, a huge smile spreading across his face.

Most of their customers are polite enough not to stare as Kuro throws himself at Wolf and hugs him tightly.

* * *

There is an elderly woman who visits the tea shop twice a week.

She is always dressed in the loveliest of gowns with embroidery she has stitched herself, and after ordering the same tea every time she sits down with a sketchbook and comes up with new patterns. She arrives after the midday rush and leaves as the sun sets, and the boy Kuro hired takes her home each time. She wields a cane and is lacking a foot, and grimaces sometimes and rubs her shoulder after leaning so much weight on it.

She cannot afford to repay Wolf for his services, she claims. She will not take it for free. Instead, he remarks that her designs would look lovely on the shop's walls, and she sighs and smiles and spends the following days stitching at the table by the window as Wolf works.

Kuro is delighted by the scrolls she provides, and when Wolf fastens a prototype he is finally satisfied with to her leg, she is beside herself with joy. She doesn't care that it's only a test, that it will still need tweaking - she still squishes his cheeks like a doting grandmother and praises him and spins delightedly on the spot without her cane even touching the floor.

She is not the only one.

There an ex-soldier who repays them by taking care of supply runs. An artist who paints the walls lively colors. An old man who keeps Wolf company with tales of his past. A child who happily tends the garden - or rather, talks Kuro's ear off as he does most of the work himself - and whose mother weeps and hugs a startled Wolf and insists he come visit them for dinner once in a while.

In times of both war and peace, there are victims of tragedy. Wolf cannot help everyone. But those that find him leave with joy written all over their faces and seeping into their hearts, and it brings him a sense of peace and accomplishment he has never known before.

And if rumors of an old warrior that replaces limbs carry as whispers on the wind, he will not complain. Anyone who seeks his skills is welcome to find him. His tools and notes will be ready, and he will never stop working to improve at his craft.

The prosthetic crafted by Aurelio sits on a shelf above his worktable, delicately maintained and waiting for a day it may be needed again. Just in case.

But today, he sits down with a cup of tea from Kuro and begins to draft a new design.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for joining me and the boys on this journey ♡ comments, bookmarks, and kudos are all greatly appreciated!


End file.
